


It Was Supposed to be 72 Hours

by Basilstorm



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mental Institution, Autism, Bipolar Disorder, Depression, Dissociative Identity Disorder, F/F, Hospitalization, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Medication, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Recovery, Recovery, Social Anxiety, Substance Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Therapy, Underage Drug Use, Underage Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 14:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11807937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Basilstorm/pseuds/Basilstorm
Summary: Room Assignments of Crystal Ward - Adolescent Females1) Jasper2) Fluorite3) Bismuth4) Lapis and Peridot5) Aquamarine and Topaz6) Rhodonite and Padparadscha7) Rutile Twins8) Garnet and Amethyst and Pearl9) CentipeetleNote to Staff: Patients should remain in their own rooms. We can't have a repeat of the incident of '93, fire damages still haven't been completely repaired.





	1. The Arrival - Descent into Hell

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick note: Primrose is Pearl. This name difference is temporary, but I'm sorry if that annoys anyone for this chapter.

To get to Heartstone Community Hospital, they have to drive past the anxiety sign.

In the defense of the sign, there isn’t anything actually anxiety inducing about it. It’s a faded orange color with yellowed words. It looms over the road in a way that could be considered obtrusive, if not for the thinness of the shadow it casts. It directs anyone who happens to glance at it to the nearby shopping plaza. 

The sign is, in all respects, completely normal. Primrose dubbed it the anxiety sign three summers ago, on the way to a field hockey practice. She had driven past it so many times that it was a shock when she fixated on the sign. There were countless little landmarks along the twenty minute drive to the turf fields that held the summer league and winter league games and travel practices, but for some unknown reason, her mind locked onto the unassuming sign and decided, with overwhelming intensity, that it meant upcoming anxiety. 

The sight of the sign on this particular day is an instant reminder of every mistake she ever made in a game, of every time her teammates ignored her or called her out in front of everyone, every moment of exhausted humiliation in a game when she missed a goal or stepped on the ball or let the it pass under her stick and shoot towards her own team’s weakly defended goal. It doesn’t matter that Primrose is aware that she isn’t going to Beach City to play field hockey. Her mind will insist that the nonverbal panic is bearing down upon her until well after she reaches her therapist’s office.

The office of the therapist isn’t actually inside of the hospital. Instead, her office and the offices of a few other specialists are located in a small brick structure a few hundred feet from the main hospital building. Primrose watches her mother check in at the reception desk while she looks for two seats next to each other. The waiting room usually only has two or three other patients, but today it’s packed. She eventually picks a slightly ripped chair closest to the therapist’s room and the television. 

Primrose’s mother finishes quickly and sits carefully in the seat next to her, smoothing out her skirt. Conversation in the waiting room is always awkward, but it’s even worse now, with so many people listening and so little to talk about. The only topic of conversation is the show broadcasted on the mounted television. It appears to be about picky families looking for the perfect house. It’s the same show that’s always played in this room, but even after countless visits, Primrose still doesn’t know the name of it. Thinking back, Primrose can remember the same mystery program being played in her orthodontists office. It seems to be the show of choice for every doctor’s office in the state. Primrose tells her mom this and earns a distracted half wave and a quiet laugh.

Primrose’s therapist, Susan Kleiber, is running even later than usual. She doesn't call Primrose or her mother into her office until nearly twenty minutes after the appointment is supposed to begin. Primrose has a feeling that they'll be charged the same $400 as usual regardless. The office seems to be taking advantage of her full insurance coverage by charging the insurance company nearly four times more than they would if she was paying for it out of pocket. 

Primrose has barely seated herself in the scratchy chair when her mother rises to move her car. Due to the many patients, all the parking spots in the closest lot are full, and her mother had parked sideways, blocking in several other cars. Dr. Kleiber tells her to go immediately so they don't stop anyone else from leaving. Primrose watches her mother leave nervously. She has a bad feeling about this session. 

“So, how have you been doing?” Dr. Kleiber asks, with a tone that suggests she expects a positive answer. Primrose frowns, anxiety increasing. “It's not going so well”.

The tall woman waves her hand, prompting her to continue. Primrose decides it's easier to get it all out right away. 

“I wrote a suicide note on Tuesday. My mom asked to see it when I told her about it, but I said no, because I don't feel like having to write another one if I have to use it”. Susan pales, and Primrose halts before her next words. For a moment, she debates whether or not to continue. A ball of anxiety settles itself low in her stomach, making her feel ill. “I cut myself with a knife”, she whispers, and tears spring to her eyes.

By the time her mother returns, Primrose is hysterically sobbing, face pressed into her hands. Dr. Kleiber informs them both of what is going to happen next. She is legally obligated to send Primrose to the emergency room of the hospital close by. There, they will talk to a social worker named Samira, who will see if Primrose needs to go to a psychiatric ward. 

The transfer to the hospital is feels rushed and panicked. Primrose can only passively watch, terror building, as they exit the small building, drive into the huge parking lot next to the hospital, and begin the checking in process. Her mother’s voice trembles as she says that she doesn’t know her daughters social security number, because she didn’t expect to be here today. They sit together on large chairs against the wall and begin to wait.

When her mother starts outright crying, Primrose decides she needs a distraction. She looks around the room quickly, doing her best to notice and remember all the details in the room. They’re sitting opposite the door into the ER, underneath the television which is playing the same house show. To the right is the check in desk, and to the left is a wall of opaque windows with large names on plaques on each pane of glass. She guesses that the names belong to the contributors of the hospital. The floor is made up of large white tiles with gray and blue specks, and the ceiling is very high above. The chair that Primrose is seated on is squishy, and she anxiously plays with one of the straps on her mother’s purse. 

After nearly half an hour, a tall dirty blonde nurse comes out of the doorway to the right and calls Primrose’s name. She rises on shaky legs and follows the lady through the thick wooden door. They enter the new area, which seems to have a green and white theme, and dodge around doctors and machinery all zooming along through the hall. The hallways are set up in a large square, with patient rooms on the outside walls, and a smaller square of desks and computers for the nurses in the middle. The tall nurse points to a stretcher outside of room 16, and Primrose lays down. 

Briefly, Primrose was approached by two men. One did blood work which left her dizzy, while the other only asked a few questions. The lady who Dr. Kleiber originally said Primrose would be speaking with approaches, and she has a long list of questions to answer. Her gruff nature makes the teen more nervous than anything else in the hospital does. Primrose’s mother breaks down the moment Samira states that she is going to send her to a mental hospital. When she tries to refuse, Samira threatens to call Child Protective Services. After a few moments, she seems to realize how much she frightened the woman, and offers to explain some of the places where she can send her daughter. Primrose is taken to the bathroom to change and pee inside of a cup.

The bathroom is all white, except for, rather oddly, the inside of the toilet, which is polished and silver. Primrose pees quickly and strips from her clothes. After a short debate with herself on whether to remove her bra, she puts on the two hospital gowns she was given. One goes on covering her back like a jacket, while the other goes across covering her front like a straight jacket. The thought of a straight jacket is nearly enough to send her into hysterics. 

Primrose returns to her stretcher to find her mom crying so hard she can barely breathe. The sight of her mother breaking down so completely is enough to break through the fake calm she has been exuding, and she starts crying too. When her crying begins to reach the level of loud sobs, a tired looking blonde woman stumbles up to them. Her eyes are red and bloodshot from tears. 

“Excuse me”, she says, voice shaking slightly as Primrose’s sobs increase in volume, “but I saw that you two were in pain and I feel compelled to pray for you. May I?”

She does pray, clutching the hand of Primrose’s mother tightly, as she begs for peace and comfort to find them all. By the time she walks away, she’s crying again. Despite her own lack of belief, the words of the prayer were enough to help Primrose calm herself slightly. She is looking around to try to find the woman and thank her, when her mother says quietly that she went into the room for hospice care. She likely has a family member who is dying. Before Primrose can fully comprehend the awfulness of it all, she is approached by a nurse who tells her that an opening has been found at Tranquil Breeze Mental Hospital and offers to bring her to a free room while she waits for an ambulance to come pick her up.

By this time, Primrose is beginning to stop feeling anxiety or sadness from exhaustion and the numbness that it brings. She tries to fall asleep, but she’s too cold even with the yellow grippy socks, two scratchy gowns, and four thin blankets. She has no pillow to use, and the stretcher isn’t very soft either.

The hours in the hospital move sluggishly. There’s nothing to do besides listen to the constant beeping and the infuriating clicking of a pen by a man sitting near her room, and the lights are so artificially bright that she would be unable to tell if it was day or night if not for her phone. Primrose spends them thinking of ways that she could commit suicide in the sparsely decorated room. Though she and her mother arrived around 4:30, it is nearly 9:00 by the time that an ambulance arrives to bring her to Tranquil Breeze. 

Primrose’s mother insists on riding in the ambulance, even though she is only allowed into the passenger's seat. Primrose is loaded into the back by two men, strapped down to the stretcher with three buckles and wrapped so tightly in blankets that it feels like a cocoon. The drive is expected to take nearly an hour, so she amuses herself by watching the lights of the cars through the darkened windows, observing how the car headlights look light twinkling cats eyes. It’s easier to look at the lights than acknowledge her mother’s ugly crying from the front, so she does until a too bright light from a motorcycle pierces through the back windows, and then she pretends to sleep. 

The first thought that goes through Primrose’s mind upon seeing Tranquil Breeze is that it looks like something out of a horror movie. The darkened windows only allow her to see the occasional small lantern on the side of the road, dimly lighting up signs that are illegible in the darkness and from the movement of the ambulance. The vehicle rolls slowly towards the admissions office, where the driver lets her out and passes the hospital blanket to her, wishing her luck.

The waiting room of the admissions office is decorated in a way that suggests it is supposed to be homey, but everything is a bit too rigid and orderly to achieve the mood. The chairs are harder than the ones in the emergency room, and are a dark blue which matches the carpet. Primrose wraps the thin hospital blanket around her shoulders and half lays in the chair.

Primrose and her mother both have to answer questions for an intake. They are the same questions that she was asked multiple times in the hospital, and the things that nearly brought her to tears earlier are now simply boring facts being repeated. 

The wait to be brought to her ward feels endless. Her mother leaves sometime during the wait, being driven home by a friend, but Primrose is too tired to care. By the time a far too energetic looking staff member comes to bring her to her building, Primrose is fighting to keep her eyes open. Against her hopes to be let into a bed immediately, she is forced to answer more questions. She would feel frustrated, if not for the fact that the ward is scarily silent due to it being well after curfew, and she doesn’t exactly want to be alone at the moment. 

Hope begins building the moment that the questions halt. Primrose is fighting to keep her eyes open, and her hand is propping up her chin. This hope is quickly shattered at the news that she will have to do a body check. It is truly the most embarrassing part of her arrival. Two staff members force her to strip naked and check her entire body in depth, writing down everything from the cuts on her hip, to a spot of eczema on her left arm, to a few bits of acne on her chest. Humiliation is beginning to settle in by the time that a third staff member brings her some PJs to change into. 

Primrose pulls on the baggy pajamas and asks to be taken to her room. Her stomach drops when she looks in the doorway and sees two other sleeping girls. She knew that there would be a roommate, but everything before had suggested that there would only be one. As she steels herself to enter the room, the peppy staff member who had brought her to the ward grabs her shoulder.

“Hey there, before you go to sleep for the night, you need to pick your nickname”, says the woman, pushing forward a list of something on a clipboard. “You need a gem name to fit in here at Crystal Ward!”

At this point, Primrose’s exhaustion is weighing down her limbs so heavily she feels she can barely move. She is far too tired to argue, so she simply scans the list, looking for something vaguely similar to her own name. She is about to pick something randomly when she suddenly catches sight of a name written on the very bottom of the list. 

“Pearl”, the teen murmurs, eyes fixed on the word. “My name is Pearl”.


	2. The First Day - At Least you can Wake Up from a Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pearl wakes up and finds that she is about to attend her first group therapy session.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From now on, all the characters will be called by their gem nicknames, and Centipeetle's name will be explained later on. I am branching off of my own experiences a bit, so from now on it should read less like a journal and more like an actual story. Also, just a warning in case you didn't read the tags (because I had so many of them), there are going to be some descriptions of panic attacks and suicide attempts in this chapter and all the chapters after this, as well as mentions of assault and hallucinations. If that's triggering to anyone, be careful!

“Why did they turn the light off?”

“I don’t fucking know!”

Pearl jolts awake to two unfamiliar voices, and struggles to remember exactly where she is. Despite how exhausted she had been the night before, it had felt like ages before she had actually been able to sleep. She had tossed and turned at first, until she caught sight of one of her roommates stumbling out of the room to go to the bathroom. After that, she realized that either of them could be awake and she would have no way of knowing, and she forced herself to lay perfectly still on the uncomfortable mattress until she managed to drift off into an uneasy sleep. Her attempt to sleep was aided by a staff member who flicked the light switch off some point after the other teen returned to bed.

A sudden, intense light from above pierces Pearl’s eyes in a way that makes her want to cry, and she squeezes them shut. Just in time, too, because there’s a long pause and a shifting that suggests that at least one of her roommates is looking at her. Her skin crawls at the possibility of strangers watching her. Before she had entered the room earlier, Pearl had caught sight of three small chalkboards hung diagonally next to the door. The uppermost one said ‘amethyst’ in purples and grey bubble letters, while the slightly crooked one in the middle said ‘GARNET’ in a maroon blocky font. The third had held the words "Holy Ghost" in white chalk. Pearl hadn’t been able to get a good look at either of her roommates before she laid down. The one to the left of her bed was covered in so many blankets that she had barely gotten a glimpse at long wavy hair before the teen had curled closer into her small nest. The girl to the right was wearing tinted visor glasses that hid most of her face, and her single blanket was pulled up to her nose. And now, they’re both looking at her, she can feel it.

Pearl forces herself to stay motionless, barely daring to breathe, as she waits for the girls to get up for the morning. If she can just wait out the time until both of them leave the room, she can avoid the awkwardness that will undoubtedly accompany her first conversation with Garnet and Amethyst. So there she stays, perfectly silent and still as a corpse, until far too long has past. Neither of the other patients get up. In fact, a deep, regular breathing from her right suggests that at least one of them has gone back to sleep. Now Pearl isn’t only afraid of moving, she’s uncertain of all of her surroundings. She could have sworn it was morning, but there’s a complete lack of noise from the many other patients she knows are here. She tries uneasily to go back to sleep. 

It’s even harder to fall asleep this time. Pearl drifts between sleep and awareness, never fully in either. She dreams so many times of sitting up and talking to Garnet and Amethyst that she can’t tell if she has done it at all, or if she’s done it so often that they’re already friends. Pearl’s anxiety surrounding her two roommates increases without limits. So does her anxiety over the situation in general.

Last night, the staff hadn’t been able to do a complete entry to the hospital for her, because it had been so late when she actually arrived. She was told that she would be informed on everything, but now she has no idea what to do or what time it is. Vaguely, she tries to convince herself that it must be at least 9, and that there are only a few hours until her mother can visit.

The next time Pearl wakes up, it’s to the sound of a nurse telling her and Amethyst to get up. Disorientation fills her completely, because she doesn’t even remember falling asleep effectively, and because the nurse informs them that it is nearly 6:30, hours earlier than Pearl had originally guessed.

“Come on, Amethyst, you need to do blood work. Are you Pearl? You need to do blood work too, in Group Room 3”, says the nurse, voice scratchy and annoyingly loud considering the surroundings. He seems to catch Pearl’s terrified expression, because he adds, “Amethyst will show you how to get to the right room. Amethyst, it’s time to get up!”

Pearl sits up on her bed, only to find that the lump that is apparently Amethyst has barely shifted, and she is now being watched by the nurse while they both wait for the other patient. To calm herself, Pearl makes her bed the best she can. All her rolling around has pulled the thin sheet off of the stiff blue mattress. She tucks it back in quickly and folds the blanket as well, which is a light blue color, and is folded in a way that resembles a sleeping bag. The nurse snarks something to Amethyst about tidiness and her apparent lack of it; Pearl can’t say she disagrees, considering how she tripped over two pairs of shoes on the way in, and she can see a laundry basket with clothes spilling everywhere shoved haphazardly in the corner. The other patient apparently is not too fond of the remark, and by the time Pearl turns around, it is to be gazing directly into the eyes of the other patient.

The first thing Pearl notices is that her baggy eyes are purple, clearly as a result of some contacts. She’s chubby, and she doesn’t seem to mind, considering that her PJ’s expose several inches of her stomach when she stretches her arms over her head. Her hair is a complete mess, all ragged and knotty, but Pearl is more focused on the shade. It’s a lilac color, pulled into a loose ponytail with a scrunchie. Her dark skin is very complimentary to the lighter shade of her hair.

Amethyst looks very displeased at having been woken up, but she has apparently decided that it is easier to simply do as she was told, because a moment later she stands, looks Pearl up and down, grunts, and stumbles down the hallway. Pearl moves after her quickly, afraid to be left behind. 

All of the hallways in the hospital look the same. The floor is a navy and black carpet, and the walls are an orangish wood. There’s a lip of wood about an inch thick along all the walls, perfectly at the height of Pearl’s belly button. Nothing distinguishes the turns that they make, and Pearl tries desperately to remember the way that they are going so she can return to her room. 

Group Room 3 turns out to be one of the rooms Pearl was forced to wait in the night before. Amethyst throws herself onto a navy blue couch, head laid against the head rest lazily. 

The discomfort in Pearl’s stomach makes it hard for her to move. She slowly sits on the couch with a foot and a half of space in between herself and Amethyst. She crosses her ankles daintily, presenting herself as proper and dignified; an illusion that is difficult to keep up, considering her clothing is a pair of light blue, stiff pajamas she got from the hospital. Still, Pearl is losing control of nearly everything, so she’s determined to keep this, at least, strong.

A nurse arrives shortly, carrying a large case which she opens to reveal an assortment of equipment. Amethyst is called first. She looks bored to death, rolling her eyes in reaction to the nurse’s warning of “this may pinch a bit”.

Before Pearl can gather the courage to ask Amethyst to help her find her way back to their room, she’s sauntering away toward the room right next to her current one. At some point while Amethyst was getting her blood drawn, other patients started waking up, going to a small blocked off room on the left, and then heading into the kitchen area to the right. Now, Amethyst goes there herself, leaving Pearl alone while she gets her own blood drawn. 

Getting blood drawn doesn’t take as long as it did when she was in the emergency room. The nurse releases her with a nod and a distracted ‘thanks’.

Pearl exits the group room and looks down the corridors in front of her. After a few moments of paralyzed terror, she shuffles past the kitchen and tries desperately to get back to her room. She knows the number, but not how to get there, and she’s too afraid to talk to staff. It takes nearly fifteen minutes, but she eventually manages to find her own darkened doorway. Apparently, Garnet turned off the lights while her two roommates were out of the room, possibly due to the brightness peeking out from behind the curtains on the small windows. She appears to be asleep, but after watching her get up last night after she had presumed the same, Pearl is careful not to disturb her as she crawls back into her own bed.

For some time after, Pearl lays still, feigning sleep again as she listens for footsteps of other patients in her hallway. Eventually, someone does walk towards her room, but a quick glance reveals that they are a staff member. 

“Come on Garnet, you need to get up now. It’s time for morning meds!”

Garnet simply groans, and Pearl hears her flop over in bed, presumably to face away from the unwelcome interruption to her sleep. The staff member ignores this negative reaction, perhaps from being used to it.

“It will only take a minute. I know you’re tired, but there isn’t a line right now. Just take your meds and then you can go back to sleep”.

For a moment, everything is silent, and then Pearl hears rustling from the bed to her right. Garnet walks carefully around the end of her bed and follows the staff member out of the room. In that moment, being left completely alone, something inside of Pearl breaks.

Pearl’s breathing hitches oddly as it suddenly isn’t enough. She’s gasping, but it’s not doing anything. Her stomach aches like she swallowed a fifty pound weight, and the small room seems to darken, blackness filling the corners and slowly creepy towards her. Tears prick at the corners of her eyes. She tries to stand up, only for her head to spin dizzily, and she ends up leaning back against her bed, sitting on the hard wood floor. Minutes that feel like hours tick by while Pearl waits for her panic attack to recede, but it doesn’t. It gets worse and worse and she curls in on herself as she tries to muffle her sobs. 

There’s someone looking at her from the room across the hall. Pearl tries desperately to get herself together, but it’s not really working considering she feels like she’s going to die. The girl in the hall creeps closer, shooting a quick glance to either side of herself. When no staff member appears to stop her, she darts into the room and sits with her legs criss-crossed in front of Pearl. She tentatively holds out a box of tissues, and digs her hands into her hoodie pocket. After a moment she tentatively offers some kind of fidget toy.

Pearl takes the tissues first, then reaches for the toy. Maybe it’s the fidget toy, or maybe it’s simply the presence of the other girl that helps her calm down a bit. She works on steadying her breathing. 

When the panic that had felt like claws ripping apart her stomach is reduced to a low discomfort, the awkwardness of the situation fully hits her. Pearl hastily glances down at the fidget toy clenched in her long fingers. It’s green and made of some kind of metal. It appears to be a spinner, though it’s clearly much different from the typical ones found in the dollar store. The other girl must have had it specially designed. Gratefulness rises in her chest, and embarrassment accompanies it.

“I’m, ah… I’m sorry you had to see that.. But, um, thanks for helping me”, Pearl says.

“I spent much of my first day in this place crying and hugging my pillow. The anxiety is a common reaction to being here, and it’s usually even worse than it would be, because the doctors take you off of your medicine that usually helps”. 

There’s another long pause, and Pearl decides to interrupt it before it becomes too awkward.

“My name is Pearl”.

“Peridot”, says the other girl, holding out a hand stiffly. Pearl stares it for a moment, and then goes to shake it. Suddenly, she realizes that she is still holding Peridot’s spinner. She passes it back quickly.

“Wow, thanks”, Peridot says, and promptly starts playing with it. 

Pearl takes advantage of her distraction, and looks up at the other patient for the first time. She’s short, with shaggy blonde hair, and thick shaded glasses. She’s wearing a worn, faded green hoodie with a cracked black alien decal in the center, black sweatpants, and slippers. Pearl is jealous of how comfy she looks, considering that she’s stuck wearing scratchy pajamas from the hospital until her mom visits at 5.

After a moment, Peridot seems to realize that she’s been silent for too long. She jumps up hastily, shoving her fidget toy into her pocket, and steps out of Pearl’s room. 

“Come on, we have to go to girls group in a few minutes”, she calls. Pearl hesitantly stands up and follows her.

Girls group is held in a room Pearl hasn’t been to yet. It’s called Living Room 1, which suggests that there are more living rooms, but she hasn’t seen any other ones. As soon as the two patients get close to the door, someone calls “PERI!”, and Peridot is tugged away. Pearl looks into the room hesitantly. It’s already full of other patients on blue couches, and she picks a seat in the back corner. 

“New girl!”, someone shouts, and all eyes turn to Pearl.

“Hey new girl, what’s your name?”

“When did you get here?”

“Oh, YOU were the one who was in the third bed in G’s room”.

A staff member hears the chaotic shouting from the nurses station down the hall and screams at them all to calm down. A man with dark hair rushes into the room and introduces himself as Doug. Apparently, he’s going to be the one running the group session today. He catches sight of Pearl and quickly explains what is going to happen. They start from the far corner of the opposite wall. A girl with a dyed blue pixie cut offers a half wave to the room.

“I’m Lapis. Treatment target; depression, self harm, suicide attempt. Goal for the day, I guess to go to full program”. 

Pearl feels her stomach drop at the words ‘suicide attempt’. She scans the skinny teen for any kind of wounds, but finds nothing. She seems bored simply being here, and the casual tone of her voice doesn’t really fit the seriousness of what she was revealing. Lapis nods to Peridot, who is seated next to her. 

“Greetings! I am Peridot. My treatment targets are anxiety and autism, and my goal for the day is to journal my thoughts and feelings”.

She seems less confident in what she was saying than Lapis had been. Her voice trembles slightly, and she stumbles over her words a bit. When she finishes, she looks around the room with a grin and receives snapping (it had started out as clapping, but a dirty look from Doug quieted that fast) from Lapis and Amethyst and a thumbs up from the girl sitting next to her on the other side.

“I’m Garnet. Target is schizophrenia, dissociation, nightmares, and selective mutism. Goal for the day is to attend full program”.

Garnet sounds bored as well. She has a british accent, which is resigned in a way that suggests she has done this many times before. Pearl finds herself looking more carefully at the teen who had been covered before. She has a huge dark, curly afro, and her visor shades are glinting from the sharp artificial light of the room. She’s very tall; probably taller than Pearl, and she’s also far more muscular than her. She looks intimidating. Garnet glances over at Pearl like she can feel her staring, and Pearl hastily looks away, blushing.

Pearl’s other roommate is up next. Amethyst has her legs up on Garnet’s lap, and she’s laying down. She might be asleep, a suspicion which is reinforced when Garnet shakes her by the knee. When she does speak, her words are slurred like she’s only half awake.

“Thanks G. Hey, I’m Amethyst. My treatment target is I tried to kill my dad”. Doug clears his throat, irritation clear, and she sighs. “Fine. My treatment target is bipolar, suicidal ideation, and anger issues. My goal for the day is to stay awake”. She promptly fails this, as she immediately closes her eyes again and begins snoring. The girl to the right of her rolls her eyes.

“Jasper. Anger, substance abuse. I got drunk and threatened to shoot up my school. I’m only gonna be here for 72 hours while I ‘detox’, then I’m out of this hell hole till my folks bring me back again. Goal for the day is to not get coded”.

Jasper is intimidating in a different way than Garnet. She’s also tall and very muscular, but while Garnet had been exuding coolness, Jasper looks like she might blow up in a fiery rage at any moment. She has long hair that clearly hasn’t been brushed in ages, and her arms are striped with vitiligo.

Pearl finds herself next in line, and she’s filled with a surge of fear. She hasn’t prepared what she was going to say yet.

“Hi, uh… My name is Pearl. I’m here for OCD, depression, and suicidal ideation. My goal for the day is to… stay calm? I guess?”. Doug nods his approval. Pearl breathes out slowly. The girl next to Pearl begins.

“My name’s Bismuth, and I’m here for anger issues and delusions. My goal for the day is to attend full program in preparation for my discharge tomorrow”. This is apparently news, because many of the other patients begin protesting and shouting questions. Doug shushes them all the best he can. 

“Centipeetle, it’s your turn”, Doug says gently.

The patient he’s speaking to doesn’t give any sign that she heard. She just sits there staring at the floor and mouthing things to herself. Everyone waits in silence.

“Anxiety. I’m gonna meditate”, she eventually murmurs. 

There are other patients in the room, but Pearl notices that they are seated farther away from the rest of them. They had come in after her, all sitting along the wall closest to the door. None of them seemed to have payed much attention to anything the others were saying, but the first girl there stands up on top of her chair right as the ‘centipeetle’ girl finishes.

“My name is Aquamarine. My mother sent me here for behavioral issues, anger, and delusions. My goal for the day is to attend full program”.

Aquamarine is so small that she can’t be more than 13 or 14. She has short dyed blue hair and is wearing a dress that looks almost like a tiny school uniform. Everything about her is small, which is very humorous considering how humongous the girl sitting next to her is. The large girl grunts when she realizes that it is her turn.

“I’m Topaz. My target is hallucinations, dissociation, and paranoia. Goal for the day is to attend full program”.

The next girl in line is absolutely tiny. She must be one of the youngest girls here. Her hair is a pale shoulder length bob, clearly dyed, and her bangs cover her face. She has a poofy dress that reminds Pearl of Princess Daisy from Mario. The patient sitting to the right of her is hugging her, but she lets go when she realizes that they’re being watched by everyone.

“I’m Padparadscha. My treatment targets are autism, processing issues, and PTSD. My goal for the day is to have a good day by talking with peers”.

“My name is Rhodonite, uh, my treatment targets are OCD, depersonalization, and agoraphobia, and my goal for the day is to talk to peers and staff”. Rhodonite seems very glad to be done talking, and she goes back to hugging Padparadscha as soon as the focus of the room shifts off of her.

To their right is a huge girl with thin scraggly hair. She moves very slowly to look up at the other people in the room. When she speaks, it is very slow as well.

“I am Fluorite. My treatment target is Dissociative Identity Disorder. My goal today is to attend full program”.

The next girls in line are sitting so close that Pearl can’t actually see where one of them stops and the other begins. They’re sitting turned towards each other, one arm each thrown around the other’s back, and the second arms holding hands. They’re also both wearing the same shirt, which adds to the illusion of them being conjoined.

“We’re Rutile. Our treatment targets are PTSD, paranoia, chronic nightmares, hallucinations, and panic disorder. Our goal for the day is to attend full program”.

Doug checks something in his binder, pushing his glasses up on his nose, and then looks back up at the fifteen patients in the room. 

“Alright. Goals group is all done, school starts soon. You have half an hour of free time”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll pick back up soon with the programs of the first day! I was hoping to finish the whole first day, but I can tell that this story is going to be longer than I first anticipated. My goal for this story is to write a chapter every other day. Let me know what you think of this chapter!


	3. The First Day - Progress is Slow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pearl finds out a bit more about the other patients and has her first short therapy session.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty disappointed with this one. It wasn't exactly flowing right, and it feels too much like filler. I promise that the next one will be longer, though.

As soon as Doug leaves the room, several of the girls who had been sitting far away from the other rise to leave. The two girls called Rutile are first, hands gripped tightly together, followed by Fluorite who moves almost painfully slowly. Padparadscha stands up and starts moving towards the door, and Rhodonite instantly stands and guides her to the door. Aquamarine struts towards the door proudly, the bottoms of her shoes clicking annoyingly on the hardwood floor, and Topaz lumbers after her. Centipeetle goes last of all. She’s still muttering to herself, and she stares at the floor as she shuffles carefully out of the room. The moment she leaves, the remaining patients seem to relax and start talking to one another.

“Yo, who wants some Dutch braids”, Bismuth calls, and Jasper promptly slides onto the floor and crawls over to her, so her head is against the other girl’s knees. Bismuth produces a brush seemingly from nowhere and begins to work, first brushing out different sections and then, with fingers flying, starts to braid. 

For a little while, everyone watches them, and then Amethyst rises with an ‘I’m going back to sleep’. Lapis follows her after a few minutes. At the absence of her companion, Peridot tentatively moves to sit with Pearl.

“Group session wasn’t horrible, was it?”

“I guess not”, Pearl replies, “But some stuff was… odd. Did Amethyst really threaten to kill her father?”. She pauses. “And, aren’t we all supposed to have picked a gem nickname? Centipeetle doesn’t exactly fit in”. Uh oh. Maybe she shouldn’t have said the last thing so matter-of-factly. Or maybe, from the face Peridot is making, she shouldn’t have said any of it. Pearl doesn’t notice Garnet rising until she kneels right in front of her.

“Everyone one here is here for something. Some of it is similar to what you are facing, but all of us have our own unique struggles. Amethyst is no different. You shouldn’t judge her for something you heard with no context”.

Pearl nods hurriedly, blushing hard. 

“And for your other question, the Gem nicknames are a suggestion only. You are required to give something other than your real name, but if you don’t want to pick from the crystal list, you can choose anything. Centipeetle picked her nickname because Steven said it was cool”.

That makes Pearl think. She hasn’t heard of a Steven, unless he’s one of the random staff members (seriously, what kind of business doesn't make the staff members wear name tags?!). She’s still trying to remember any Stevens she knows when a beautiful woman leans into the room and knocks on the door.

“Pearl?”, she says, and Pearl feels her stomach flutter reflexively. It would seem that even the anxiety-invoking nature of her surroundings isn’t enough to quell the gayness inside of her. She rises and follows the woman out of the room and into that room that Amethyst had gone into after getting blood work done. 

The room is a very small kitchen. Despite the fifteen patients, there are only four chairs at the tables that aren’t even large enough to hold that. Pearl picks the one against a wall and close to the door, and the woman sits opposite her.

“Hello Pearl. I’m Rose Quartz, and I will be your therapist for your time here. How has your day been so far?”

“It’s been alright, I guess… I wish that I was allowed to take my Prozac this morning, because I’ve been in a perpetual anxiety attack, and all I can think of is how to kill myself, but that’s to be expected”. 

Rose sighs in response.

“I know that you must be terribly anxious, but we needed to remove you from any medicine you were on. Now, we can start fresh and figure out something that will work”. Rose pauses here, like she’s waiting for some kind of signal to continue, so Pearl forces a smile. “However, that doesn’t mean I’m just going to leave you to be anxious. What can we do to help you with that, hmm?”

“At home, I listen to music or ASMR, but-”. Pearl’s voice is trembling her eyes prick with tears that she struggles to contain. Her phone was usually the perfect distraction from a panic attack, but now it's in her mother's purse until she eventually gets out. She misses having it. “I could read, but all my books are at home, and I can’t have anything that’s mine until my mother visits later".

Rose grins softly at this. Her smile is quite beautiful, and Pearl finds herself smiling in return despite the tears in her eyes. 

“I can help you with that, I think. If you come visit my office, you can look at my bookshelf and pick out anything you want. Would you like that?”

“Can we go now?”, Pearl asks. “I haven’t been able to move around much and I want to go outside”.

“Of course. Come with me. It’s a bit of a hike, I’m sorry. You girls aren’t usually so far away, but while renovations are happening, you’re stuck here”.

Rose Quartz leads Pearl to the door she had entered the night before. It beeps loudly, demanding attention from a staff member who peeks her head around the corner to make sure that neither of them is a patient trying to escape. 

Rose was right when she said it was a hike. Her office is about eight minutes away, and on an uphill slant. It feels good to be away from the ward, though, so Pearl doesn’t complain. It’s a relief to reach her office all the same. Pearl steps through the open door and is immediately blasted with a cool wave from the AC. Rose’s office is neat and looks comfy. The floor is a plush pink carpet, and there’s pictures hung all over the walls. Most of them contain the image of a balding man and a small curly haired boy. Pearl glances at them as she moves closer to the bookshelf.

The bookshelf doesn’t have too much to offer. Pearl skims some of the titles. Wonder, Sisters, some encyclopedias, Beowulf, a few academic texts. Eventually, she settles on a worn copy of one of the Lord of the Rings. Upon closer inspection, it appears to be the third book. Pearl was never big on the Tolkien works, and this is certainly not her first pick of his works. The Hobbit is her favorite, but even that is not overly interesting. She takes it anyways.

“Can I have this one?”

“Of course you can”, Rose smiles. “Now, I need to bring you to school. That’s a mandatory program, and I’d hate for you to lose any privileges this soon to arrival”.

Oh great, they have a school here. Pearl frowns behind Rose’s back. It’s not that she doesn’t like school; it’s just that it’s summer break, and it reminds her of the summer work she hasn’t started yet, and the dreaded upcoming field hockey season with its painful double session preseason practices. This is going to be just great.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter isn't as long as the other one, just wanted to get an update in. I've been having a lot of nightmares about my time at the hospital, and I'm not sure if it's this story causing it or not. I'm still going to do my best to finish this, just, if some chapters are a bit delayed, that's why. My medicine has been working pretty well, but it makes me have really vivid dreams that I can't wake up from. 
> 
> Next chapter we get more into the actual routine of the day and I add more of the gay. And hopefully finish up this day soon, because the longer Pearl is here, the shippier it's going to get.


	4. Welcome Back to Kindergarten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pearl goes "back to school" and finds a way to make the time go faster on this first achingly long day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this chapter after taking my medicine again, and it's hard for me to keep my eyes open, so if there's some mistakes just know that's why. I have a feeling if I try to do a close edit, I'll fall asleep before I post this, and it's already a day later than I wanted it out.

The school is in an oddly shaped building. Pearl mentally critiques it as she walks alongside Rose, focusing on the blandness of the brick walls, the scraggly attempts at a flower bed, and the cracks in the path to the door. It’s hard to fix her mind on such trivial things when she recognizes the beeping sound of the heavy metal door as it opens and locks behind her, which makes her feel as claustrophobic as she had the one time she had gone on a school trip to the nearby police station. All of the young students were lined up and allowed to see what it was like to be locked in a bare jail cell. The others had been shouting with excitement, but she had just pressed against a corner until their five minutes were up. 

Rose leads Pearl into a room to the right, with a soft carpet and books lining all the walls. It feels more comforting than any other place in the hospital. As they enter, Pearl scans the room. There’s three young adults sitting near the Smart Board and a man leaning awkwardly against one of the wooden support pillars of the room. When he sees Rose enter, he stands upright and walks forward stiffly. He’s unattractive and sweaty, and wearing an ill fitting grey suit. Pearl has to force back a wince of disgust when he goes to shake Rose’s hand.

“It seems your group hasn’t arrived quite yet, but you can just wait here for them”. Pearl must have made a face at the thought of being left alone with this unappealing man, because Rose quickly adds, “And, there are way more books here than I have in my office. You can look for something else if you like”. 

Pearl nods hesitantly, and when Rose turns to leave, she faces the nearest bookshelf. The spines of the books are all pastel shades, and they seem very thin. She scans the first shelf and slowly sidesteps to the right, looking for anything besides these, when one of younger men in the room interrupts her.

“Yo, there are better books over there”. He points at the opposite wall without looking up from his phone. “Most of the books over near you are for the little kids”.

She blushes hard, moving quickly over to the other wall and glancing over the titles. All that’s on the shelves are encyclopedias and some trigonometry textbooks. It’s either pretend to reread the titles of the books here again and again until her group arrives, or sit and read the book she already has. Pearl chooses the second option, sitting with her ankles crossed at the nearest round table. She fakes reading, because this is the third book in the series and she can’t quite remember where The Two Towers left off, but it’s not here and she’s completely lost. Eventually, the door beeps, and the noise is instantly followed by a chorus of voices. Pearl puts down her book to watch the members of her group enter.

First comes Lapis and Peridot, fingers interlocked and arms swinging. Next is Jasper, who doesn’t even spare a glance at the room as she drops into the seat in the back corner. Jasper is followed by Aquamarine and Topaz, who march stiffly to the table closest to the front, sitting across from Lapis and Peridot. Garnet and Amethyst are next, chattering away amicably. They both step back against the wall to let in Bismuth, who seems carrying a rather large bundle of feathers, colored pencils, glitter glue, paper, and googly eyes. The Rutiles sit at the same table as Jasper, and Lapis and Peridot are quickly joined at their table by Rhodonite, who seems to be leading Padparadscha into the room. Fluorite comes last, and she sits at Pearl’s table. Garnet and Amethyst, who had stopped to hold the door for the slow girl, sit in between her and Pearl. 

The sweaty man from before stands up and introduces himself as Dewey. He promptly begins to ramble on about how this hour long block of school is going to provide for their future. Pearl zones out. It would seem that most of the other are too. Fluorite is leaning back in her seat, staring at the ceiling. Lapis has her head buried in her arms, presumably already fast asleep despite having only stopped moving a minute ago. Jasper is making faces at Amethyst, who struggles not to laugh as Jasper becomes more and more creative, while Garnet stares blankly at both of them. The Rutile girls are whispering to each other. Rhodonite is playing with Padparadscha's hair as the younger girl plays with the seams of her dress. Bismuth is sorting through her art supplies. In fact, the only one who seems to be remotely playing attention is Peridot, and after a moment of observation is becomes clear that this is only a facade, as every time Dewey glances away, she begins scribbling into a notebook.

After maybe five minutes or so of this, one of the young men who had been sitting near the Smart Board groans and stands up.

“Come on Dad, you’re boring everyone. Just let them watch their movie”.

“Yeah, thats right”, calls the girl sitting next to him. “And we got you some markers and some patterns to color in”. 

Dewey frowns at being interrupted and tries to restart, but Garnet is already walking over to the diagonal art table in the corner. She is followed by an eager Peridot, a reluctant Amethyst, and a sulky Jasper. Pearl watches all of them as they return, then hesitantly goes up herself. The patterns are actually pretty decent, though they all seem to be some sort of sea life. She selects a large seahorse and five different colored markers. 

The reason for the sealife theme becomes clear when the movie is started. Or, not really started. They’re watching Finding Dory, and this is apparently the second day of this, so they start halfway through. Pearl considers her options for a moment, and then begins to color.

Pearl feels remarkably like she’s in kindergarten again. Here she is, in this ‘school’, watching a movie and shading in a pattern on a seahorse. And she actually finds it to be the most entertaining thing she's done all day. The other patients seem happy as well. Garnet is carefully shading in a picture of two dolphins with red and blue markers. Amethyst is lazily scribbling over the outline of a jellyfish, going over the lines in a way that makes Pearl’s skin crawl. Bismuth seems to be on a whole different level, considering the largeness of the paper she’s working on and the humongous array of supplies laid out on her table. Jasper, who had been staring at her paper motionlessly for about ten minutes of the movie, grabs a bottle of glue, pulls off the top, dumps it all over her paper, and then pours a shit ton of orange glitter over it carelessly.

The time spent watching the movie actually passes quickly. Having something to do makes it much easier for Pearl to distract herself, and suddenly she’s an hour more into this long day. Before she can fully comprehend this, she is being led with the rest of the group across a parking lot and back to her ward. Mentally, she checks off another hour before her mother will come to bring her stuff. She can’t wait to feel like something other than a hollow figure in the wrong story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter done! I know that it's probably annoying that this first day is so long, but I feel like I need to write it that way. My first day in the hospital felt like it took so long that I half convinced myself I had died and gone to hell, and that I would be there forever waiting for a single day to go by which never would. The first full day I was there, I was given my medicine, and after that things went faster. The following days will be shorter, both for that reason and because the medicine messed with my memory some the first few days I was on it, to the point where I couldn't focus on things enough to remember them seconds after they happened.


	5. I’m Sorry

Hey guys. I’m really sorry but this story is on hiatus, possibly forever. There’s a whole slew of reasons why, but the main one is, the more I recount my time in the hospital, the worse my nightmares get. When I was writing a chapter every other day I was only getting a few hours of sleep per night because I would have vivid nightmares the whole night long. I thought it was just a result of having gotten out so recently. When I stopped writing the nightmares faded, but I didn’t make the connection. But I tried to do Nanowrimo this month with a heavy focus on my hospital experiences and the nightmares are back and just as bad. I can’t keep writing this unless I do it all in one chunk, and I have a lot more that I wanted to be written. Maybe I’ll put up a summary of what was planned to happen later, in case someone else wants to grab the idea and run with it. But for now, this story is on hiatus.

**Author's Note:**

> So there we go, the first chapter! This chapter is longer than pretty much any story I've written in full length. Just a note, everything on this story is based on a real experience that I've had. Pearl is (in this chapter at least) a basic recount of everything I went through during my admission to the mental hospital. From now on, I'll be branching out and spreading my experiences onto many of the characters, as well as adding new things. I'm not usually a writer, and I took my meds before I wrote a lot of this chapter so I don't have enough energy to proofread the entire thing. Let me know if you notice any glaring mistakes, especially with dialogue (which I suck at).


End file.
